Joey’s Midterm had been aces right round. It’d been real nice getting a break from school, specially as for the first time ever it actually felt like a proper break and not just a couple weeks of temporary ‘reckon I can stay in bed instead of hopping the bus’ morning routine. Because breaking from RMI meant leaving the school totally on the other side of the world and going back to Straya. The worst thing about breaking when you went to school cross town was that you always wound up bumping into random classmates or even teachers unwanted. Fine thing that the odds of doing so were nil when your school was on a different continent. They’d still bumped into his little sister’s teacher out of nowhere at the dairy aisle, though, and he’d took a fair heap of satisfaction outta Paige’s bright-red face.

The least aced part of Midterm was the part where Mum still wouldn’t let him change his hairstyle, not even after he’d explained so carefully that bowlcuts weren’t popular in America and there were already barely any Asians at RMI so why did he have to be the one Asian with a bowlcut? But it got better when he got back to his Draco room and took it on himself to chop off the ends and brush ‘em under his dresser. It was hard making his hair look too different when it was already so solidly cut in the shape of a bowl, but the ragged ends helped a bit, and he’d tried experimenting with putting lotion in the roots so that he could fake style it. Wasn’t the same as hair gel (he assumed, having never used it cos it wasn’t like anyone in his family did and also wasn’t like he was gonna just up and ask the older students to loan him gel) but it helped a bit more, so all was apples.

Walking into the Diner, he made a beeline for the soups, since soups were great, and in particular spoons were handy when you didn’t have time to double-check your hair still looked OK after classes. Joey was investigating his rather distorted reflection in the back of a rather angular spoon when it occurred to him just what he was doing. Was he really that shallow of a blobber that he was wasting time admiring himself instead of… Okay more important than that, where was he and what could he be doing instead here? Also who was he? That seemed important, though not as important as the pot of soup on a nearby table. Oh, good, he had a prime sense of priorities. Good job, himself.

“Did you see that move?”

The small boy jumped, startled at being addressed. “Scarnon?” He could tell that he was small, cos the other boy was Not, but he couldn’t tell what the other boy was talking about -- oh wait. There was a piece of paper literally floating in the air and a feather dancing around on top of it, not like it was caught up in the wind but like it was following some kinda pattern. And more than that, it was following the other boy while he fidgeted around. “Wooooah that’s wild.” What was causing it? Science? Elves? Aliens? Whatever it was, and whoever he was (still hadn’t figured that part out but, again, not so important), he gaped at it, mesmerized by the possibilities. The other boy didn’t sound as impressed and was requesting pinches, so with a shrug, he leaned over. “No need to chuck a wobbley, but since you asked nice and all.” He gave the other boy’s elbow a good pinch and then resumed gaping at the paper, at least very briefly, until he paid more attention to himself talking. “Berko. Wooooaaaaah berko, I’m Australian!”

What was going on here? The young man looked around, not remembering where he was, how he got there, or who he was for that matter. And why was it so quiet? He glanced around and there were people... more